This past Monday, I returned to the church of my teen and young adult years, St. Joseph, Jersey City. For one of the oldest Jersey City churches and the oldest active parish, it looks pristine.

As I entered, one dozen women were listening to Caryl Forte, a Jersey City resident, speak about the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico and all the Americas.

She mentioned that after the apparition of the Blessed Mother to Juan Diego in Mexico City on Dec. 9, 1531, then the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Spanish Empire, nine million Aztec Indians were converted in nine years. “This was the only image of Mary as an Indian given to the world,” said Forte, who is an actress. And that image was right next to Forte as she spoke.

It is known as “The Miraculous Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

These traveling images were commissioned and blessed by Monsignor Diego Monroy, the rector of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and they have traveled all over the world.

The guardian of the one here traveling around south Hudson County for the next 10 days is Dan Lynch, a retired judge, from St. Albans, Vt.

Forte arranged for this image to come to Hudson County more than six months ago. On this tour, it started with a Mass of welcome by retired Newark bishop Charles McDonnell at St. John the Baptist Church, Jersey City, last Friday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

Once the image arrives, a church may hold some form of devotion for the faithful. Typically, there can be what is called a Holy Hour when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed and people can pray silently or hold group prayer. There is also the praying of the Rosary, which is typically a devotion to the Blessed Mother.

Forte goes along with the image from church to church and talks to the visitors and provides devotional material and some religious items for sale. It is all non profit, said Forte, and any funds are used to ship the shrine, which travels on its own.

It comes in two pieces and is assembled upon arrival. It came to Jersey City from San Bernardino, Calif. Forte said that the image is used as a means of evangelization to bring people to the church and has attracted thousands in processions in Dublin, Spain and the Philippines.

Cristina Zarejko, came to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1982 and is a St. Joseph parishioner I met on Monday. She recently retired as an accountant for the state. She spent time in prayer before the image almost seeking guidance from the Blessed Mother. “Let me know what you want me to do,” she said was the prayer she offered.

That sentiment could also apply to Forte, who embraced this personal mission to promote the image of Guadalupe. She learned about what she described as a “miracle” involving a photo of the Blessed Mother at a Philadelphia shrine. She formed what she has called Performance Artists for Life Association, using this traveling image as a way to promote a culture of life. Forte belongs to Our Lady of Victories Church and graduated from St. Dominic Academy.

She noted that in 1999, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Our Lady as Patroness of the Americas, Empress of Latin America, and Protectress of Unborn Children under this title of Guadalupe.

It is certainly life-giving for Debra Patterson, 58, the school secretary at St. Joseph School, attached to the church. She rushed over after school closed to spend some time before the image. “I had no mother growing up,” she said. She described how she has always had a devotion to the Blessed Mother and saw her as her own mother. “She treated me very well as a child,” she said. “She came to me.”

And by traveling from church to church, this image reminds people that just like Mary’s appearance in 1531, she still comes into people’s lives.

Santora is the pastor of The Church of Our Lady of Grace & St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, fax (201) 659-5833, e-mail: padrealex@yahoo.com.

F.Y.I.

Visitation of the “Miraculous” Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe